Midweek Musings...

Just as a quick heads-up to everyone-due to the hours I work, if there is going to be a post up here on any given day then nine times out of ten it won't be up until at least 7pm, so if you check when you come home from work and there's nothing new on here, then don't despair...there could be sooner rather than later.


Anyway-stream-of-consciousness style, let's run through what's going on in the EIHL...


Look, people...just sort yourselves out so we can play some bloody hockey: The EIHL discipline farce continues anew, with Brad Voth being granted a second appeal as Cardiff simply won't let it drop, now claiming they have a letter from the EIHL which guaranteed the original ban would be six games-if this is true than the EIHL need to tear up the rule book, start again and get people who aren't connected with any of the clubs (like...I don't know...the referees) to sit on the discplinary panel, since they're the ones who call the penalties in the first place-and just tell the world and his wife club officials who are currently involved to stick to something like making sure their clubs survive or, and here's a novelty...getting on with playing the games themselves. The Devils fans resemble the Lone Gunmen of the EIHL, everyone else just believes that the league are now frantically trying to cover their rear-ends while at the same time benefit the clubs who have the most influence on the board (i.e: satisfy those with the biggest egos) as much as possible, and quite frankly they now simply look like they couldn't manage a piss-up in a brewery. But, on the plus side, at least their incompetence hasn't meant that teams may have won games thanks to a player who is technically susp...

*pause as realisation sinks in at EIHL Towers*

oh, bugger....


"Hey guys, surely we can work something out here...":...and literally half an hour after I wrote the above, we have the official decision, which, conveniently, realises that maybe twelve games for a slash and a fight was a bit much and brings it to an end in time for the weekend. At the same time, it sorts out the lingering Steve Thornton issue but halves the ban he'll actually serve. Of course, this decision will have nothing to do with the fact that the original ban would run into GB being away in November and, as the EIHL are a member of the IIHF, any disciplinary sanction would render him unpickable for the same GB squad about which the EIHL were so excited he'd agreed to return to-hence the glowing press release about it at the time, and anyone who tells you otherwise is nasty, cynical and probably a Cardiff fan with a chip on their shoulder.

Trouble is-this means, even in line with the other reduced bans (Rick Kozak has had his reduced from ten to six, which he's already served), the EIHL now look like they consider a slash and a fight (Brad Voth) worse than a stick swung at the head (Thornton) and about on a par with potentially breaking someone's neck with a sucker-punch that causes a wound needing 25 stitiches (Rick Kozak).

So basically...if you want to hurt someone for the least possible punishment, Elite League players, don't punch them, stick them in the head. It's only worth four games.

And we wonder why people say that team owners running the league and doing everything else, rather than appointing neutrals or people who have no connection currently with any of the teams beyond, perhaps, having played or coached in Britain in the past, is a bad idea.

Well, now you have your answers.

"This is a local game, for LOCAL people"...Well, not quite that parochial, but the League of Gentlemen had a point, or at least a pithy way of summing up why I don't consider it a hardship when the "superstar" Brits in Coventry disappear for their weekend in Poland...players like Chris Wilcox and Tom Ledgard (names that may not be familiar to you, but are if you keep an eye on the Coventry ENL team) get to step up to the Elite League and show what they can do. And we get to see them-something that realistically is not going to happen when all the Brits are around...in a competitive situation at the top level in the UK. Surely that's a good thing, right-after all, once people would have considered watching players like Jon Weaver and Ash Tait part of an "understrength" side, if they got more than a few minutes on the top line, and you can bet there were mumbles about them playing instead of more experienced players too...

I know this is a fairly short post, but there you go...I have to cut it there for fear of things just turning into a long anti-EIHL-disciplinary-panel rant. And quite frankly, there are enough of those on the forums already...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...